Entertainment

NAB: Broadcasters Conference Highlights Digital Content

At the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show, digital media professionals will present, educate and collaborate on the industry’s latest technology. The show takes place April 14-19 in Las Vegas, Nev.

Founded in 1923, NAB has certainly come a long way from its roots in film and radio advocacy. Now the show tackles new media and entertainment technology in the widest scope possible — from content creation all the way to content consumption, and every step in between.

“Our event is about bringing together the leaders, the folks who are really driving media, entertainment, content development and distribution,” says Chris Brown, EVP of conventions and business operations for NAB.

Some major players in the digital media space will be attending NAB to discuss current events and announcements. Ben Silverman, founder and CEO of entertainment studio Electus and producer of shows like The Office and Ugly Betty, will talk about how we can connect digital media titans and players with those who create content. Other speakers include Stephen Dubner, author of Freakanomics, and James Cameron and Vince Pace, who will provide updates about their company, the Cameron Pace Group, which fuses creative and tech. Last but not least, Hollywood sweetheart Betty White is a keynote speaker.

As you can imagine, the digital media landscape changes drastically from year to year. More and more the industry is being impacted by particular consumer preferences and buying habits.

“[The NAB Show] reflects a new reality today that’s being driven by consumer demand,” says Brown. “There’s more demand for content, and maybe more demand for a new kind of content.” And in fact, this year’s event theme is “The Great Content Shift: Defining Your Evolution.”

That’s where creative comes in. Brown explains that NAB is dedicated to fostering content creation that can not only reach a wide number of people, but tell a story across a variety of different platforms and devices. NAB calls it “disruptive media.”

And new creative means new business opportunities. “There’s both an operational challenge in figuring it out, but then there’s also a business model challenge in trying to understand how does that affect the way we make money?” says Brown.

Content delivery platform Akamai specializes in making sure many of these technologies are accessible to the average viewer. The company will be attending the NAB Show, where it will demonstrate how it manages to deliver about 30% of the world’s Internet traffic — by hosting high-quality content at very high volumes.

In fact, Akamai plays a role in the content delivery of almost every major broadcaster, event and sporting league in the world, says SVP and general manager of Akamai’s media division, Bill Wheaton. The company has built the largest video delivery system over IP in the world.

“We’re basically looked at as the FedEx of the Internet. People outsource to us that large-scale delivery at very, very large volumes,” he says.

At NAB, Akamai will be announcing its work related to this year’s Olympics. Wheaton says 30-36 broadcasters are expected to participate in the 2012 games, the majority of which Akamai will be helping to deliver content. Just how much content? About 3,600 hours of footage over a 17-day period, all of which needs to be high-quality, adaptive bitrate streaming across a myriad of devices. Oh, and it has to be secure from potential cyber attacks. Akamai employs KONA Security Solutions to protect its customers’ content from these threats, of which it sees about 1,400 in a given 24-hour period.

“[Akamai security] allows high-profile sites and companies to work on the web very securely, and they don’t have to worry about potential attacks from groups like Anonymous,” says Wheaton.

Other attending companies are more involved in the search and discovery stage of digital content. For instance, Rovi’s discovery technologies and entertainment metadata help consumers who seek all kinds of content, from live broadcast, video on-demand, recorded, cloud-based or over-the-top entertainment.

Chief evangelist at Rovi, Richard Bullwinkle, explains the company’s role at the upcoming NAB Show. “For companies involved in the delivery of professional video, we will unveil new encoding solutions designed to streamline the preparation of video entertainment for digital distribution channels.”

Rovi will also be sharing an updated version of the MainConcept SDK, its video and audio codec library, which helps developers serve the broadcast, professional and consumer industries.

Interestingly, NAB isn’t just about serving strictly the new media and entertainment spaces. Traditional TV, radio and cable powerhouses, independent content creation agencies, special effects and computer animation houses also benefit. The event is also valuable for enterprise sectors, like health care, education, retail, government and even the military (at the show, an unmanned surveillance drone will circle overhead).

Where does your industry fall into the mix? Are you involved in any phase of content creation or distribution? Where do you see digital content and media technology going in the future?

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